Page 11 of King of Ruin

“Ah, well, let me thank my cunt for saving me,” I say facetiously. “Tell me, Kane. Does your father know you were fucking the enemy? Would you be punished if he found out?”

He drops his hand, his head tilting in amusement as he backs away. I blink rapidly, ignoring the tingle working through my veins as he smirks. “Who do you think told me to do so? Thought it would be the fastest way to get what I needed.”

His words burn a hole into my ribs, and my lungs squeeze, the air becoming impossibly thin. He’s lashing out, matching my condescending tone with his own form of defense. “You’re a liar.”

He moves back into my space until we’re inches apart, something I’d wanted so he’d be close enough I could knee him in the groin. Only now, I can’t quite get my body to cooperate with my mind. Instead, I stay perfectly still, my breath coming in pants, while my limbs remain still as if I’m paralyzed.

Kane lowers his now frozen green eyes to mine. “How would you know, Boss? All the while I was watching you, learning about you, memorizing you, had you ever wondered about me?”

I swallow, the sour taste of my secret obsession burning on the way down. When weren’t my thoughts riddled of anything but Kane? From the moment Maddy brought him into my office, I felt the pull. When his background report came in, I poured my attention over it, scanning the pages again and again, wondering if there was something I’d missed the first time.

There was no corner of his background I didn’t know. His love of libraries when he was younger. The fights he’d gotten into because of a sister with a heart too big for her own good. His 4.0 GPA in high school, yet he didn’t even attempt to go to college and instead stayed in Sherwood Valley, accepting cash jobs.

It still doesn’t add up. Seeing him now, knowing who his father is. In fact, it makes the entire situation more of a conundrum. Why would he need to work when he was training to take over for his father, who is the second richest person in Washington?

Why would he live in the slums and drive that death trap of a car? Why wouldn’t he be the face of the family like Phineas?

None of it makes…

Then it hits me in the chest, jolting me as far upright as my restraints allow. A fire erupts in my limbs as the pieces fit together. “He’s planned this since your birth.”

I say it more to myself than to him, but his smirk confirms it. “Mo chailín cliste.”

“He raised you away from the life so no one would know he had a son. A son he could use at his disposal later.” Hot bile burns my throat as I work it out.

I remember asking my mother about the Murphy family. How he could traffic young girls when he had a wife. Did he not see her in the vacant eyes of the women?

“His marriage was arranged. A deal made to give him more connections in the east. The wife.” My mother’s face softens, her hand lifting to brush my curls away from my face. “She couldn’t bear children. From what I’ve heard, she’s nothing more than a bag of bones and bruises.”

Perhaps Kane is an offspring from an affair. One Phineas kept in his pocket until he saw good use for him.

Imagining him and his father speaking about me, and how he could infiltrate my home sends a vicious ache through me. One deep in my core that seizes my heart in a constricting vice.

I was a job. A way in. Nothing more than an iron gate he was meant to unlock. And no matter what I thought was there, lingering between us, it was nothing more than a facade. He can put on a front about how he had no choice, but now I think that’s a lie too. He’s manipulating my emotions. My thoughts. My focus.

A common form of exploitation used to break a captive down. That’s all I am, after all. His feat. His trophy. Nothing more than the prisoner of his great victory.

“I hate you.” The hushed whisper sounds small–juvenile, and while I mean the three little words, I loathe that he was able to coax them out of me.

Hating him means he meant enough to me. That I allowed him to take residence in my life and hold value.

Hating him means I am not the ghost and heartless woman I’ve trained myself to be.

“Say it again.” His voice snaps me from my self inflicted pity party, drawing my attention to the fact that he is one big breath away from my face.

“What?” I blink away spots suddenly encroaching my vision.

He huffs from his nose, the warm air coasting over my face. “Say it again.”

“No,” I say defiantly, lifting my chin to meet his hardened gaze.

Ezekiel’s brows pinch together, and for a moment an emotion similar to pain flashes through his eyes. It’s fleeting, though, disappearing quicker than it came, then his voice drops. “Say it. I want to hear it.”

“I think I’ve made it perfectly clear I’ve never cared much about what you want.”

“Hmm, tell me another lie. They sound so pretty when they come from your lips.” Strong fingers slide down my jaw, and when I snatch my face away, he chuckles.

The sound is low and makes me bare my teeth like an animal. “Get away from me, Kane.”

---